Former employee sues Paesanos for alleged workers’ rights violations

A lawsuit filed in Sacramento Superior Court alleges that the operator of three capital region restaurants violated state labor laws.

Paesanos, a Sacramento-based chain of pizza and Italian food restaurants, was sued by a former employee on April 17 for nine allegations of state labor law infringements.

The suit was filed by Allison Hurtado, who worked at the Paesanos’ Elk Grove location — at 8519 Bond Road, Suite 101, in the Elk Grove Marketplace — from 2022 to 2024, according to the suit.

Hurtado initiated the lawsuit on behalf of herself and “hundreds of current and former” Paesanos employees and is seeking class action for unpaid wages and other damages from the purported violations, the filing said. The chain has three locations in Elk Grove, Davis and Sacramento.

In the complaint, Hurtado alleged that during her time working at the restaurant’s Elk Grove location, she and other employees were denied breaks, not properly paid for their work and not reimbursed for using personal items for business purposes.

Hurtado worked as a cook, prep line supervisor and dishwasher during her two years of employment at the restaurant, earning up to $22.30 per hour, and typically worked five days per week for eight to 10 or more hours per day, the complaint said.

The lawsuit claims employees were told to complete all assigned tasks without logging overtime hours or required breaks, leading Hurtado and her colleagues to reportedly not be paid for all time worked.

According to the California Department of Industrial Relations, state law mandates that employees be given a 30-minute unpaid lunch break if they work a shift longer than five hours. They also must receive a 10-minute paid rest for every four hours they are scheduled to work.

California law outlines that workers must be paid 1½ times their normal pay for any hours worked overtime, up to 12 hours. After 12 hours, overtime pay rises to double an employee’s typical pay rate.

The lawsuit identifies additional alleged labor violations, including failure to provide accurate wage statements, failure to pay all wages upon separation, and failure to pay minimum wages for work performed off the clock.

Hurtado also claimed in the lawsuit that she was required to use her personal cellphone to place orders for customers and make reports on employee productivity. She was reportedly not reimbursed for this as required by state law, according to the lawsuit.

In the complaint, Hurtado’s lawyers said that having an insufficient number of employees working may have caused the alleged labor rights infringements. Employees reportedly had to “compensate for understaffing and ... ensure that patrons did not wait an excessive time for service,” the filing read.

Representatives for Hurtado and Paesanos did not replied to a Sacramento Bee request for comment.

This story was originally published April 24, 2025 at 10:07 AM.

Camila Pedrosa

The Sacramento Bee

Camila Pedrosa is the California Diversions Reporter at The Sacramento Bee. She previously worked on The Bee’s service journalism team and was a summer reporting intern for The Bee in 2024. She graduated from Arizona State University with a master’s degree in mass communication.